Thursday, November 20, 2008

Would you be able to afford a tuition increase?

According to the November 20th edition of The Tennessean, due to deep state budget cuts, the Tennessee Board of Regents will be increasing tuition for all of the universities and community colleges in Fall 2009. Schools like Middle Tennessee State University could see an increase of up to 24 percent at the high end.

What does that mean for Volunteer State Community College? According to the article, community colleges, like ours, could increase tuition by anywhere from 10 to 29 percent.

For example, the cost of tuition for one semester at Vol State is currently $1,365.50. Hypothetically speaking, if the tuition was raised 20 percent, tuition per semester would be $1,637. That's an extra $217.50 a semester.

I asked a few students on campus whether or not they would be able to afford an increase:

So, what about you? Would you be able to afford a 20 percent tuition increase?

1 comment:

In my eyes, this is essentially a hefty tax on education. Heavy taxes should be used as a way to purposefully discourage something we want less of. That's the idea behind the tax on cigarettes. But we wouldn't introduce a 20% tax on creating new jobs because we want to encourage new job creation. How can such an increase in the cost of education do anything but discourage Tennessee workers from furthering their educations? And how can that do anything but hurt the Tennessee economy?